How to read the Cowboys board: moneyline, spread, total and the hold

Every Cowboys game on the board is laid out as six tables: each side of the moneyline, each side of the spread, and the over and under on the total. A table lines up one position across every venue that prices it. Here is what the columns mean and how each figure is calculated, worked through with one real set of numbers: DraftKings' prices for Sunday's game at Indianapolis, as ESPN listed them at about 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday.

Three ways to price one game

Moneyline. You are picking the winner and nothing else. A minus number marks the favorite and shows what it costs to clear $100 in profit; a plus number marks the underdog and shows what $100 earns. DraftKings had Dallas at -230 and the Colts at +190: $230 on the Cowboys to make $100, or $100 on Indianapolis to make $190. The listing also shows the opening price, -125 and +105, so the market has moved a long way toward Dallas this week, in the days after the Colts traded Quenton Nelson and DeForest Buckner.

Spread. The favorite gives points and the underdog gets them. DraftKings had the Cowboys -5.5, up from -1.5 at the open. Dallas has to win by six or more for that side to cash; Indianapolis cashes by winning or by losing by five or fewer. The price attached to the spread is what it costs to take that number: -105 on Dallas and -115 on the Colts. Football spreads cluster around the margins games most often end on, three and seven points, so a half point on either side of those numbers is worth more in the NFL than in most sports.

Total. Forget the winner and add the two scores. DraftKings had Sunday's total at 51.5, down from 52.5, with both the over and the under at -110. The over needs 52 combined points; the under needs 51 or fewer. Dallas games have run high: the eight so far have produced 48, 57, 65, 64, 40, 36, 59 and 63 points, five of them above Sunday's number.

These are examples of how the board reads, not a recommendation, and the prices will have moved by the time you read this.

The per-$100 column

American odds and contract prices do not compare at a glance, so the board converts every quote into one figure: the profit a winning $100 position returns.

• Plus odds: the profit is the number itself. +190 returns $190.
• Minus odds: divide 100 by the odds and multiply by 100. -230 returns $43.48; -105 returns $95.24; -115 returns $86.96; -110 returns $90.91.
• A prediction-market contract priced at p (70 cents is 0.70) with a fee rate r: profit = 100 / (p × (1 + r × (1 − p))) − 100.

Take a Cowboys contract at 70 cents, roughly the same as -233. With no fee, $100 buys 142.86 contracts and a win returns $42.86 in profit. At Kalshi's 7% fee rate, part of the $100 pays the fee instead of buying contracts, and the profit drops to $39.92. The same formula gives the standard check figure: a 60-cent contract returns $66.67 with no fee and $62.13 at a 7% rate.

How Novig's fee fits in

Novig's fee depends on when and how you trade, per its published fee schedule as of November 2026:

• Pre-game straight trades on the app or website pay no fee, so a 70-cent Cowboys contract bought before kickoff returns the full $42.86 per $100.
• Live (in-game) trades that take a resting order pay a taker fee that scales with price. It is 0.06 × price × (1 − price) per contract, the same rate in every league. At that rate the same 70-cent contract returns $40.33.
• Makers, traders whose resting order is the one that gets filled, pay nothing.

The board prices games before kickoff, which is why Novig's rows there carry no fee.

Best price and the gap

Each table is sorted by the per-$100 figure, highest first, and the leader is tagged Best. Novig is pinned to the top row so it is always visible, and every row below shows how many dollars it gives up against the leader on the same $100. On the moneyline that is a clean comparison. On spreads and totals it holds only when two venues deal the same number; if one book has Dallas -5.5 and another -6, the row is flagged, because in football the extra half point can decide the result.

The hold

If you read one column, make it this one. Turn both sides of a two-way market into implied probabilities and add them. A perfectly fair market comes to 100%. Whatever is above that is what the venue keeps.

DraftKings' moneyline above implies 69.70% for Dallas (-230) and 34.48% for Indianapolis (+190). Together that is 104.18%, a hold of 4.18%. The spread, at -105 and -115, comes to 104.71%, and the total, at -110 on both sides, to 104.76%. All three margins are built in before kickoff.

A prediction market has no house on the other side, so its two sides usually add up to within a point or so of 100%. A market with the Cowboys at 70 cents and the Colts at 31 adds to 101 cents, a hold of about 1%, and what is left is simply the distance between the best buy and the best sell on the order book.

The board prints each venue's hold beside its row, worked out from that venue's own two prices when the board last fetched them. It says nothing about who will win. It tells you what the venue charges to take part.

How fresh the numbers are

The board refreshes about every ten minutes. NFL lines move most on injury news, and the final reports come out Friday afternoon, with inactives about 90 minutes before kickoff; this week Dallas listed George Pickens and Jake Ferguson as questionable. Use the board to see which venue tends to pay more on which side, then check the live price before you act. Sunday's game page carries the full comparison until kickoff, then becomes the score and, after the final, the recap. The full schedule is on the team page.

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